This year's Runge Reading Throwdown is in the books. You read the numbers last week - all 4 teams (5, if you count me), read more than 10,000 pages, 2 of the teams at more than 20,000 pages and they're awesome. Winners were cheered, prizes were given out, snacks were eaten; it was a lot of fun.

But the best thing for me about our celebration was getting to hear people talk about how much fun they had reading books and how nice it was to feel like they were helping our library out. Some people got back in the habit of reading a little bit every day. Some people re-discovered authors that they used to enjoy but had stopped reading. Some people asked us for help picking something to read and ended up reading (and enjoying) books they'd never heard of before. Although those who won enjoyed getting prizes, most people were really just happy to contribute to their team and by extension to our community. We had kids as young as 5 and adults who are over 80. We had students and teachers, parents, grandparents and children, and members of the Runge Chamber of Commerce and the Runge Museum Board. Our little contest truly ended up being a community effort, and it was a joy and a blessing to see each one of you come in and to get the chance to talk about books with you.

What happens next? Well, we get the library back in shape, we get geared up for the school year. I can't wait till it's read-aloud time again! We start looking for our next community project (suggestions are welcome), and we keep looking for good books for you to read.